World Day Against Child Labor 2024 is on Wednesday, June 12, 2024: arguments against child labour?

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 is World Day Against Child Labor 2024. Education International - World Day against Child Labour 2013 World Day against Child Labour

arguments against child labour?

You could derive ideas from the following:

Today, throughout the world, around 215 million children work, many full-time. They do not go to school and have little or no time to play. Many do not receive proper nutrition or care. They are denied the chance to be children. More than half of them are exposed to the worst forms of child labour such as work in hazardous environments, slavery, or other forms of forced labour, illicit activities including drug trafficking and prostitution, as well as involvement in armed conflict.

what are the different specific causes of child labor?

what are the different specific causes of child labor?

Laws against child labor tend to form when the inclusion of children drops the marginal product of labor for families below an adult's marginal product of labor. In other words, adding children to the mix increases labor supply to the point that wages for the average family are lower with the child than without the child, as long as no children work.

Imagine a world with 1,000,000 adult workers and 1,000,000 child workers. Imagine the wages were $2,000,000 per day or $1 per day per average worker and $2 per day per family.

Now imagine that adult worker skill had risen to the point that it was in fact more valuable than $2 per day, but the added skill was lost to the market by all of the cheap labor and capital was becoming more abundant.

So imagine a new law requiring child education and banning child labor. Two things would occur, first the labor supply curve would strongly shift and wages would move to the marginal product of labor, say $2.25. So now the workers and families would average $2.25 per day, product quality would improve and everyone would be better off.

THe Choice prostitution or labor?

THe Choice prostitution or labor?

It's ironic that the overpopulated country which has been managed inefficiently by successive governments in Bangladesh are not 'punished' for making people poorer, rather the Western world is weighing morality to engage kids below 18 years of age who can earn a living with honor and dignity if they are working in any export-oriented industries where compliance are strictly maintained in other parameters of any Western industries. As a result these poor kids aged between 14 to 18 years are thrown back to the 'sea of hunger' where they would revert back to more degrading work under the ownership of enterprises who would produce low quality products or low-value products for local sale, thereby, paying half or below salary to what these poor souls would have got if they were allowed to work in export-oriented industries where the long-arm of the Western Buyers could monitor their safety and security besides a respectable salary that would have helped the families, who are also themselves working for a pittance in local industries, just to make the ends meet. Now the question of which would need to be tackled first? It's more like egg or chicken came first.

I would say that restricting kids between 14-18 years is a double-edged sword. If you keep allowing it then people would be dependent and future generations won't improve much. But if you throw these kids out on the streets and they get more degraded then how can you justify the 'cruelty' meted out to these aspiring kids who would have one day taken the position as good worker to replace the aging work force? If you do not come and see the problem at ground level then you could hardly fathom what is the result of your advocating high moral values and depriving people who were starting seeing some lights at the end of the dark tunnel. Let me quote a few survey results and leave it onto your good judgement as to whom you are depriving by creating awareness as if you are savior of these unfortunate kids who were barred to earn a decent living.

Quote: "Over a third of the population is under the age of 18 and almost seven million children between five and 14 have to work to help their families survive." Un-quote.

Quote: "Legal protection: Bangladesh enacted the Labour Act in 2006, which includes a chapter on child labour. This new law prohibits employment of children under 14 years of age, as well as prohibiting hazardous forms of child labour for persons under age 18. However, children who are aged 12 and above may be engaged in “light work” that does not pose a risk to their mental and physical development and does not interfere with their education." Un-quote.

Quote: "Around 26.5 million of the 63 million children in Bangladesh live below the national poverty line, regardless of the measurement method used and more than half of all households with children are poor in terms of international poverty line below the $1 Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) threshold. Around 58 per cent of all children are severely deprived of any one of the six deprivation indicators: shelter; sanitation; water; information; education; and health, with around 20 per cent suffering from at least two severe deprivations. Around 64 per cent are deprived of sanitation facilities; 59 per cent of information; 57 per cent of proper nutrition (stunting, wasting, or underweight); and 41 per cent of adequate shelter......About 6 per cent of all children are orphans; and relatively more orphans (30 per cent) are from femaleheaded households......Despite constitutional recognition of the right to shelter for all citizens, 41 per cent of all children are deprived of adequate shelter. At policy and programme levels, there is little provision for providing shelter facilities to poor, homeless households, or children living on the streets." Un-quote

I would suggest that an in-depth study of the problem of child-labor be undertaken in Bangladesh context and then come out with a possible solution as to how to curb this curse of child-labor with a win-win situation whereby the winner would be innocent children in one hand as well as their employer & buyer of the output on the other hand.

Hope above helps understand the dilemma we are passing through now about child-labor in Bangldesh.

Holidays also on this date Wednesday, June 12, 2024...